Ronnie and Oregon 

August 28-31, 2015

Friday

Ronnie, Kordt's brother and my dear friend, was sick up in Medford, so Kordt and I jumped into the car with Lottie and Paul and headed north. It's a measure of how concerned we were that we were able to pack and pull things together so quickly; we were on the road less than an hour after I got home.

Just as a reminder, Kordt is my lifelong friend; my husband, Scott, stayed home to tend to the pets and get his fantasy football picks. If this sound snarky, let me assure you, it is not - it's just a better situation all around if Kordt and I can do things in our haphazard Darcy/Kordt way, especially when under stress, rather than trying to fit into the Scott way. So, anyway, off we went.

As we drove, we assured ourselves that we didn't have all the information, yet. The little we had heard had been filtered through Susan (Ronnie's ex, and the mother of his grown child) and distilled down into tense phone messages or texts. Susan has been known to be on the dramatic side; perhaps,we said, this depiction of Ronnie as gravely ill was just "a case of the Susies."

We passed the airport, and looked over to see a stretch of grasses that were soft and green - inexplicably so, in this third year of harsh drought, with its ubiquitous sepia tones of the dead, brown lawns. We marveled at the lush green meadow.

My ten-year-old son Paul said, matter-of-factly,"I want to frolic in that."

We laughed and he continued, "I could totally frolic in that shit. I want to run through that with flowers in my hands."

We forged on toward Oregon, tired, concerned, but laughing...

Saturday

We got to Medford in the middle of the night, made our way into one of the nicer hospitals I've been in, and found ICU. Susan came out, exhaustion and dread blunting her normal effusive manner. We left the kids with her and went in to see Ronnie. He was out, on Fentonyl, and he looked bad, but we expected him to look bad. They were checking him for pneumonia, of course - he smoked forever, having been handed a cigarette by Uncle Bob when he was 7 years old.

We went back to Susan's farmhouse, slept, ate, made more attempts to visit Ronnie, but whenever he was brought up out of the Fentonyl haze, his heartbeat went crazy - he was experiencing anxiety, they said. They were waiting on blood gasses and tests, but he seemed to be responding to the antibiotics. I know this road, I thought. If he can just get a leg up on that pneumonia, things will be a lot easier.

Sunday

Kordt and I took the twins and Susan's son Ian to Fun Center. It should be named something else, maybe Loud Center or Ripoff Center or Oh Dear God, I Just Gave You Tokens Center. The kids had fun, though. We were stumbling through Sunday; we were going to have to leave soon, and we still hadn't been able to make sure Ronnie was okay.

Then Susan left a message at about 2:00, just as we were thinking of checking in one last time and hitting the road for Sacramento. Come to the hospital now, she said. Ronnie's dying.

Ronnie didn't have pneumonia. His COPD was just to the point where there was no function left in his lungs. They put him on care measures and he just...started slowing down.

We were finally able to talk to him. I told him Bevvy, my mom, wanted to bring him Whitman chocolates, just as he had done for her when she had pneumonia. When Ronnie heard Bevvy's name, he figured out I was there, fought his way up to look over at me, and he said, "DOR-rie!" He had a nickname for everyone. When he heard Kordt's voice, he stirred and said, "Carlyle! When did you get here?" We told him he had given us a scare. We told him we were going to bring him back to his farm soon.

Ronnie and Susan have been broken up forever. It didn’t matter. Whatever side she sat on, he slowly edged his way that way, like the tide following the moon, until he could breathe her breath. She held him as his respirations slowed and her voice, as she told stories of their good days, held the tone of a lullaby.

His daughter Mira was heartbroken and strong, surprisingly calm, but deeply sad. She had forged the bond with her father after he had let her down, repeatedly, with his drug use and irresponsibility. She had urged her mom to bring him to Oregon years ago and had begun doing the work with him that led to their renewed relationship. She was supported by her friends, young people who blundered in and tried to do all the right things, so painfully inexperienced in the world of dying, so awkward and well-meaning. Ron, if he could have stirred himself, would have been pleased by how well they cared for his daughter, and he would have been touched by their sadness.

His breathing slowed, but he hung on hours longer than I would have expected, from my experience of watching people die. Finally, Kordt and I looked at each other.

“Ronnie. We’re leaving,” Kordt said. “We’ll see you at the farm tomorrow. See you there.” We left the room.

Monday, just after midnight

Later, Susan, who couldn’t bring herself to leave the room, who couldn’t take her eyes off Ronnie, finally said, “Ronnie, I’m getting some sleep,” and she set her head on his chest. He stopped breathing.

And ever after

Ronnie didn't get the support he needed or the breaks he deserved. His stupid uncle gave him cigarettes and then booze at a young age. His father and his mother, wrapped up with their own turmoil, somehow didn’t see or didn’t know what to do. Kordt, now one of the kindest people I know, bullied his younger brother, and nobody stopped him, nobody protected Ronnie. They didn’t teach him enough about being something besides a kid, a kid who used substances – alcohol, cigarettes, and drugs.

But Ronnie knew how to grow and build things. He knew how to make things better for people. He worked hard and kept going, even as his body suffered, from untreated hernias, or a hurt back, or arthritis. He made people laugh, he forged friendships, with Darrell and the Ball Droppers and the Markowskis and Max Fitzpatrick and Bradley, with Todd and Maggie, Sabine and Charles. He fell in love, with Susan, and later with Daisy, and he became a father whose little girl worshiped him. He pleased all the people for whom he worked, Candace and Sister Libby and Mrs. Hazen and Mrs. Hebert. He delighted my mother; she loved him so.

When we lose someone important, there are always things we regret. There are so many, many things I wish I had done for Ronnie. But even as that thought crosses my mind, there is a part of me that rebels. After the death of his father, Ronnie packed up his belongings, including Pickles, his chicken, and Wendell the turtle, and he moved up to the farm to live the last few years of his life. He was where he wanted to be. He was living the life he wanted to live. He had his beautiful daughter and grand-daughter, and the love of his life, Susan, who had changed into a friend, but who knew the full content of his heart.

When my own father had cancer, he said to me that it sucked to be dying at 59 years old – better to be 79 or 89, he said – but he told me that he had had something few people ever had. He had married the love of his life - and many people, he said, go their whole lives without ever experiencing the joy that he had experienced, as a husband and as a father to my siblings and me.

In that vein, I say, yeah, it sucks that Ronnie died so young, at 53. And it sucks that his life could have been extended if someone, anyone, could have been able to influence him make better choices along the way. But I also know that he experienced true love, and the joy of bringing a beautiful girl into the world, and the fulfillment of being a mentor for Susan’s son Ian and Daisy’s son Christian, and the deep satisfaction of seeing the happiness continue down through the years in ethereal presence of the lovely Alice, his granddaughter.

And all of that, while tending his animals, and growing his pot and picking tomatoes and huge zucchini squashes. The sun has set on Ronnie’s farm in this dimension, but in another place, a golden light bathes the vegetables and the waving grasses, a sweet breeze stirs the leaves against a blue sky and Ronnie is breathing it all in. And he is free.

Riders

Sometimes I invite dead loved ones to ride along with me as I drive somewhere alone.

"Hey, Daddy," I'll say out loud and he's there with me. "Folsom," I'll say to him, "It's built up. I'm not going by the lake, but it's really low from the drought."

I tell him how mom is doing, and my brother and sister. I tell him about my wonderful kids and my husband, and my friends. I tell him the Giants won another World Series. I work my way into telling him how much I miss him, and how much I love him. I bring up stories of times we all had as a family and tell him how important that was to me, and that I know how hard he worked, and I know he was shy and that he always tried so hard.

When my dad was dying, he and mom talked about their first kiss, and, although he was almost too weak to talk, he said to her, "We'll go on kissing in the shade..." I tell him that mom is fine, everyone loves her and we all move around her like she's at the center of our universe, a beautiful silvery moon instead of a garish sun. I tell him how scared I am of losing her, so scared I think I sometimes distance myself from her even now, even while she's still here to laugh with and hug.

When I finish talking, I tell my dad that any time he wants to come back and look at the world, or find out about the family, he can come ride with me. I always let him know that if this is disruptive to him, that he doesn't have to come. But he can come when he wants to and I'll invite him when I think of it. 

And I don't believe any of it. Not even for a second. Unless maybe it's true. 

The Costco Fambly

My people are big on Costco. We all have cards. If you don't have one, I should tell you that as part of the membership process, they take your picture and insert a small, crappy, black-and-white version of your face on the back side of the card so they can verify that you are the one with the membership.

We'd hate for people to be sneaking in and buying 7-pound cans of nacho cheese sauce without paying their fair share.

Plus, there are all the free samples to consider. Without a system in place, the stations could get overrun by outside people seeking tidbits and morsels. And then there might not be meatballs right when I expect there to be meatballs.

So, they put your picture on your Costco card. A crappy one. 

I tend to lose cards, so I'll start this next section out by saying "A couple cards ago..." A couple cards ago, something happened to my picture, so it pixilated or something across my teeth, (or perhaps I should say, "teef") making it look like there were just big spaces there. Of course, I found this highly fabulous. I bragged about this fact and shared it with my family (or perhaps I should say, "kin") and they responded by producing equally impressive pictures.

I wouldn't be the person you know me to be if I didn't take this chance to share those photos. Some people have a sense of history even while it is being made, and fortunately one of those people is my brother Andy. He demonstrated his sensitivity to the importance of this event by compiling this commemorative montage. Please enjoy.

You have to work pretty hard to get a picture this bad of my mom, Bev. Most of the time she's quite cheerful and sunny; she has sparkly eyes. Here, she says she looks like Ma Barker. "You killed mah son." 

Andy said that, as bad as his is, he looks like a freaking Kennedy compared to mom and me. He's right.

Possum Story

My friend Kordt went out for a cigarette once and there was a huge possum with needly teeth and it hissed at him. When he told me this, I jeered at him, because who's afraid of possums? He said it was a really BIG possum.

Months later we were driving past the exit for Rye Patch Dam in Nevada (Kordt's comment, "Rye Patch DAM? What's it holding back, sand and cowskulls?") when I saw a very large dead possum. I asked Kordt if that possum was a big as his possum. He said, "That possum could have crawled out of the WOMB of MY possum."

Rivets and Rutabagas - The Time We Got Up-Dos

Once, Teresa and I decided to get up-dos for New Years Eve. I won't tell you where, but it was not a good call. 

My hairdo took more than two hours to create, made me look unhinged and a hundred years old, and cost a ridiculous amount of money. My hair was pulled tightly back, as if racing away from my forehead like deer from a forest fire, and secured with weird little pearls that looked like Frankenstein rivets; behind that, hard, tight, shiny little sausage curls tumbled, Jonbenet style. This was sprayed with so much hairspray that when I touched a curl, I mistook it for a plastic comb, asking Teresa, "When did they put THIS in?" 

Teresa's hairdo took less than twenty minutes to create, made her look seventy years old and neurotic, and cost a similarly ridiculous amount of money. Her hair was a scrubby mess of loose, languid frizz surrounding a strange lump in the shape of a chrysalis or root vegetable on the back of her head. It looked like a big dust bunny or a matted rat's nest.

Oh, and it wasn't just hair; we got our make-up done directly afterward. Teresa's wasn't bad, but I had mine done by an older lady who aptly sized me up as hideous and decided I deserved bright orange lipstick and a thick coating of pale foundation and powder which cracked and added wrinkles that weren't even there. It was Bob Hope Kabuki make-up. I remember my ancient, worried eyes staring back from the rear-view mirror on the way home as I tried to figure out if it was as awful as I thought it was.

It was. We started to laugh, and decided we had to share our new looks.

Giggling, Teresa and I went to show Mom, acting like we were totally okay with the hairstyles. We saw her look up happily, register how awful the hair was, and then realize she had to conceal her look of shock. We could tell she was trying really hard not to laugh, and we finally let her off the hook by laughing ourselves, at which point she howled, hanging onto the sink. She asked why Teresa had a rutabaga on her head, and why they had driven rivets into my skull.

Teresa adds to this narrative, “Needful to say, we then showered and scrubbed away the awful makeup and styling products, and did our own hair and makeup for New Year's Eve. I WISH we were unselfish enough to go out in our scary looks, spreading mirth as a public service, but vanity triumphed. By the time we hit the parties, we looked rather fetching, and not so much old, insane, and bizarre.”

As I recall, I did not look fetching - my hair was rendered lifeless by the many washings needed to get the spray out, and I ran out of time to get artful with my makeup. But as it turned out, looking great was not the thing that brought me joy that night, or in the many times since then that I have remembered that New Year's Eve.

Two Shining Afternoons Outside of Time

They say the act of observing something inevitably changes the thing being observed. So, when I tell a story from my past, my past changes. The facts may not change, but my understanding of them does, and that understanding IS my past. The actions of my past take on the glow of my finer intentions, infused with my current desire to be regarded well. Other people fare better as well; my memory makes them funnier, more generous, more respectful. I don't think this is out of kindness on my part, but to convince myself that I was in control, getting good things, having great times.

The First Afternoon
So, in the spirit of that understanding, I am going back to a day more than thirty years ago. I was with my boyfriend, Eric, and his brother Jon and his brother's girlfriend Cheryl, who were visiting from Toronto. We left San Francisco in the early morning, traveled to Muir Woods and strolled through the thick needles under the giant redwoods, looked up at the dewdrops falling off the top needles and staggered around trying to catch them on our tongues. We drove down to Monterey and went to the aquarium and then ended the day on a sand dune in Carmel, looking out at the Pacific as the sun sank low. It was beautiful, and perfect, even at the time.

The guys decided that such a momentous occasion deserved a grand gesture, and so they serenaded us. They each dropped to one knee in front of us; Eric took my hand as Jon took Cheryl's, and they began making the most god-awful sounds, loud, tuneless bellows similar to that of a deranged sea-lion, if it were either bereft or very angry. Jon pitched his voice up into a nasal shriek; Eric barked, "Huhr! HuhhUHHRrrurrh!" Cheryl and I laughed helplessly and so they both doubled their efforts; and the volume, the weirdness and the sheer length of it made it funnier and funnier. Only when Cheryl and I assured them sincerely and forcefully that we were utterly swept off our feet did they stop. Eric straightened up and said with quiet dignity to the people around us, "That was a serenade. We were demonstrating our love and devotion," and Jon said, gravely, "You are welcome." 

We flopped down in the sand, watching the slanted sunlight bounce and glitter on the waves. Someone mentioned being thirsty, and we all bemoaned how completely dehydrated we were. "I am so thirsty," Eric said to me, showing me a handful of sand, "I could put this in my mouth, and I would derive moisture from it." 

We talked for a while longer, waiting for the sunset. Eric mentioned a novel - I think it was by John Fowles - in which a man experiences a moment with a woman and some friends that seems almost to stop in time. Years later, the character is no longer with the woman, but he remembers that perfect moment. Eric said, to us, "I think this is that moment for me."

The Second Afternoon
On a different day, Eric and I were walking along in San Francisco, when he suddenly pulled me into a flower shop. "Point at a flower," he said. I pointed at a tulip. "I would like to buy that flower for this woman," he said. The exchange was made, he handed me the flower and we walked out into the street. We kept singing The Girl from Ipanema, all day long. We walked to Crissy Field, called his brother Rod from a pay phone using a phone card and wished him a happy birthday. We got a drink at Vesuvio, and were walking back toward Eric's flat when we passed a large crowd that had collected around a street performer putting away a saxophone. "One more!" - they were cajoling the musician, a big, tall Black guy with a shy grin. "All right," he said, picked up his instrument and quickly ran a scale up and began playing The Girl from Ipanema. We snapped our heads to look at each other, and Eric said, "Will you marry me?" We laughed and walked off, with our arms around each other, walking up the hill toward home. 

It's impossible to reconcile those moments with my life now, and of course, they're not supposed to fit. Those are shining, golden afternoons outside of time. It was decades ago; Eric lives in Toronto.  I correspond with him every five years or so, but never much, and not in a sustained way. There's a part of me that is afraid somehow he'll find this and read it, and think it's pathetic for me to remember and make so much of a relationship that fell apart so long ago. But there's another part of me that needs to commemorate it, to cry for the beauty of it, to mourn the loss of the promise yet again - and then let a sigh and a quiet smile be enough.

The Girl From Ipanema - Astrud Gilberto

Suhderz Eat Nuts

When the kids were barely talking, Paul was watching me clean out a butternut squash. He pointed at the seeds and asked, “Suhderz eat that?” I asked him to repeat himself a couple times, and then told him, “I’m sorry, honey; I don’t understand that word.”

Paul sighed, and then rallied himself and looked into my eyes with great intensity and said, firmly, “Suhderz eat nuts. Suhderz eat that?” “Oh, SQUIRRELS,” I said as Paul nodded happily.

So, Paul had linked the abstract concepts of seeds in a squash to nuts, made the association of nuts to squirrels, theorized that if squirrels eat nuts, they might eat seeds, but may not, and then found a way to help me understand the word his little toddler mouth couldn't form. 

Hello, Again

I've decided to start putting thoughts down in this forum. Of course, this used to be part of the MA program in Educational Technology, so the couple of you who may somehow be notified of this activity, feel free to bail if you want. On the other hand, if you want to stay, please do.